


Queen of the Swan Dive

by downjune



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: How did Harley demonstrate that she cared?For cryin’ out loud, howhadn'tshe demonstrated it?
Relationships: Dinah Lance/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Queen of the Swan Dive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [funnefatale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnefatale/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, funnefatale! Every time I watch this movie, I come out of it shipping these two even harder, so I was excited to see your request!! I'm not familiar with comics canon, so I'm drawing strictly from the movie. I hope you like it!

Canary stole her car back without so much as a _Hey, how ya doin?_ which Harley thought was a little rude and hurtful. Never mind that she’d stolen it first—they’d been heroes together. Got the bad guys, saved the kid, shared hair ties, drunk margheritas—didn’t that count for something? 

Didn’t Harley count for something? For anything?

“Those are your abandonment issues talking.” Huntress said this while fletching her tiny crossbow-killer arrows and shot Harley a quick look. “Of course you count.”

“Thanks, sweety,” she said, not unappreciatively. But anything Huntress knew about psychology, she’d learned from Harley, and Harley’s track record with relationships was, frankly, mixed at best.

“You told me that if I wanted my friends to know I care about them, I needed to demonstrate my feelings,” Huntress said.

“So you bought Roman’s club and gave it to her, I know.” Harley rolled her eyes. “I don’t have that kinda cash just lying around. And if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on real estate.”

“No, that’s what I’m saying—you need to find your own way to demonstrate you care.” Huntress looked at her in that steady way she had, easy eye contact and confident body language. The heir to a fortune she could spend on her friends and their dorky crime-fighting outfit. She was working through her trauma—with Harley’s help, thankyouverymuch—and come out the other side of it with a few people skills to go along with her kickass crossbow skills. 

So how did Harley demonstrate that she cared? 

For cryin’ out loud, how _hadn't_ she demonstrated it? 

Acts of service? She’d contorted herself into so many shapes for Mr. J, she’d made herself a pretzel. She’d bleached her own skin to match his fucking clown makeup. Gifts, sure, if she could steal them. She’d offered all kinds of affirmation and quality time, too, and been slapped down, turned away every time.

Either Harley had lousy taste or she was… or she was the problem. She was the common denominator. 

Harley had thought Canary was like her—made to serve another. A harlequin at heart. But when Canary got a lungful of independence thanks to that stunner of a gift from Huntress, she’d gone her own way. She didn’t need a master. She sure as fuck didn’t need Harley. So, yeah. That stung.

“So you don’t think stealing her car again is the right way to say that I care?” she said wistfully, tracing her fingers over the steering wheel of the cream convertible. She really liked this car. 

In the passenger seat next to her, Huntress shrugged one shoulder up, gaze intent on her work. “You’ll get her attention, but I’m not sure it’s the kind you want. Maybe you should just talk to her. She’s inside.” She tilted her chin toward the back door of the club. It was currently closed for renovations, Harley assumed to remove the stuff Roman had gotten his gross all over. 

Maybe she could snag some of it for the new place she’d gotten with the kid. Harley didn’t turn up her nose at second-hand furniture. There’d be a layer of cereal dust and glitter over everything before the end of the week, anyway. 

“Talk to her?” She snorted her skepticism, warily eyeing the back door across the alley. “What would I say?”

“Ugh, I don’t know.” Huntress gave a full-body shudder. “I bought the club for her, remember? We don’t talk.”

And Harley was no scaredy-cat, but like hell was she marching in there to _talk about her feelings_. What was the point of that? She could talk her way _out_ of a tough situation. She could talk circles around any two-bit debt collector. But straight talk had never been her forte. Nothing about Harley operated in a straight line. 

Still, she hopped out of Canary’s convertible and crossed the alley with purpose in her stride. Her heart pounded with an unfamiliar kind of anticipation. She didn’t usually give herself much time to think this stuff through. She’d always been a creature of impulse. The flash of the sun on a pretty necklace could throw her off enough to forget that she needed to find dinner for that night.

As her apprentice, the kid was officially in charge of dinner until further notice. 

This was… premeditated? A little?

“Nope, fuck it,” she said and yanked open the door. No plans, just guts.

It was the first she’d been inside the club since Canary’s takeover. And, damn, the girl had taste when she had a Bertinelli budget to work with. Harley could barely remember what the place had looked like before—which was probably down to Roman’s generic douche-nozzle aesthetic as much as her own lousy memory. 

A riot of color pulled Harley’s attention around the space. Murals, beaded glass, and mosaics covered the walls, and the ceiling had been lowered, so the whole place felt cozier. Even with all the color, the lighting was dim and intimate, very much a night club. A stage still occupied the front where, Harley hoped, Canary would sing again someday soon.

The sonic boom of her voice still vibrated in Harley’s muscle memory. If her bones had memory, it was there too.

“Wondered when you’d turn up.” She spun around to find Canary at the bottom of the spiral stairs that connected the club to the upper levels of the building. Harley’d been knocked around and almost had her face sliced off in one of those rooms. She hoped Canary had hosed that one down. It’d smelled like she’d been far from the first person knocked around and scared shitless in there. 

“Well, I was gonna steal your car again,” she answered, because she hadn’t come with a plan. 

Canary cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. She had on a pair of sparkly gold, second-skin pants and a loose cropped shirt that showed off a red bra thing underneath that made her tits look awesome. “But?” she said.

“What?” Harley yanked her eyes up from the red bra thing.

“You were gonna steal my car again, but you’re in here, so I’m gonna assume you changed your mind? Or maybe you just want a drink first.” She came the rest of the way down the stairs and crossed to the bar. 

“Right.” Harley gave herself a shake and stuck her fingers in the pockets of her jean shorts. “I was gonna steal it, but Huntress dropped outta the sky like the friggin’ Bat, and told me you’d just steal it back again and you’d be mad. So we had a chat instead.” 

“What about?” Canary stepped behind the bar and started mixing a margherita without asking for her input. 

“Nothin’ important,” she answered by reflex. “I gotta get a car, you know? Hard to be a bounty-hunter mercenary without a reliable set of wheels.”

“Dog walker, though. You could still do that.” Canary shook her drink like a pro and poured it into a sugar-rimmed tumbler full of ice. 

“Yeah.” Harley pulled out a barstool and sighed dreamily at the thought of all the precious pooches in her neighborhood who could use more regular walkies. She took a sip of the margherita and winced slightly as the wicked sweet-sour flavor hit her right in the jaw. It was perfect. “Thanks,” she said through a grimace.

“Welcome,” Canary said with a huff and poured the rest from the shaker into another glass for herself. Then she did a surprising thing—she came back around the bar and dropped onto the stool next to Harley. She took a sip of the drink, winced, and shivered. “You’ve got one hell of a sweet tooth.”

“You made the drink,” Harley felt compelled to point out. 

“I know you like that trashy shit,” she answered, leaning her elbows on the bar and looking over with a faint smirk.

Harley narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t detected a trace of judgment in Canary’s voice—just a statement of fact—so she shrugged.

“What took you so long?” Canary asked, when Harley had said nothing because she could think of nothing except the truth to say. 

“What do you mean?”

“I took my car back last week. Thought you’d turn up sooner rather than later.”

Harley regarded her warily. She was confronted then with the absolute certainty that this wasn’t like that time at the Booby Trap, life-or-death, don’t-think-just-fight. And she didn’t have the crutch of a boozy buzz like the last time they’d sat together at this bar.

The truth bubbled closer to her tongue. _I don’t have friends, and I wanted to feel what it was like again. I’m no good on my own, just like everyone says, but fuck ‘em. Just because I know myself doesn’t mean I have to hate it. I want friends, not another Mr. J._

She couldn’t make herself say it, though. If she said it, Canary would hurt her with it, just like Mr. J and all the others had. 

“Did ya miss me?” she asked instead and edged her elbow along the bar, just until her shoulder nudged against Canary’s. 

“Like a bull in a china shop,” Canary said, watching her right back. 

Harley’s nose wrinkled. “Is that a yes or no?”

Canary shook her head, no, her smirk getting wider. “Yes.” She nodded.

Harley took a bigger gulp of her drink than she meant to and set it back down on the bar top with a crack as she swallowed and flushed. Her skin’s pigment might be fucked, but her capillaries filled with blood just fine. 

A touch on her forearm startled her, and she let go of the glass before she spilled it. Looking down, she found Canary lightly tracing the red and blue diamond pattern of her tattoo, her eyes on the mark of the court jester. The harlequin.

Harley looked at her with that swan-dive feeling, and thank fuck Canary wasn’t looking back right then, because it was not something she was ready to share.

“How’s the kid?” Canary asked, withdrawing her hand. “Haven’t seen her around lately.” She looked down into her drink before taking a swallow.

Harley sucked in a breath and straightened on her stool. She reached for her drink again and spun it a few times, spreading a little puddle of condensation around on the bar. “She’s a peach—and one hell of an apprentice, I’ll tell ya. Tons of good ideas.”

Canary snorted a laugh, one eyebrow shooting up her forehead. “What kind of apprentice?”

“Well, a mercenary bounty hunter dog walker, of course!” Harley answered. Sure, the kid would undoubtedly turn out better with Canary looking after her. Canary had the kind of constitution that’d withstood Roman Sionis, for fuck’s sake. Even driving him around from one crime to the next, sharing air with Victor friggin’ Zsasz, she’d held onto herself. 

The kid could benefit from that kind of influence, Harley thought, but she’d picked Harley, not Canary. Maybe they could both turn out less terrible together than they would on their own.

“I’m glad she’s got you lookin’ out for her,” Canary said and smiled. “Glad you’ve got her lookin’ out for you, too.”

“It’s good to have a protégé,” Harley reiterated before she got all sentimental. She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me! How’s the ex-little piggie?”

“I’m not her protégé, if that’s what you’re implying,” Canary said with a reassuring amount of attitude. 

Harley grinned. “I was, and thanks for the clarification, babe.”

Canary’s smile flashed in answer before she looked down at the bar again. “I think we were hoping you’d want in on the Birds of Prey.”

“I try to avoid joining groups with names,” Harley said, “unless I’ve got no choice. Doesn’t mean we can’t—I mean, if you need me for anything…” She had her chin resting on her hand, figuring if she physically held her head steady, she wouldn’t wuss out and look away when she made her offer. 

“It felt pretty great—you and me and Huntress and Renee, right? I mean, that felt great. I didn’t dream it.”

“No, I definitely bring a spark to any group dynamic,” Harley said with full sincerity. “Named or otherwise.”

Canary’s smile was a little tighter this time, and Harley’s stomach tightened by reflex. “I was thinking—it felt so damn good to do something that I wasn’t ashamed of. That I didn’t hate myself for. I was thinking maybe you’d get that too.” Canary lifted her eyes to Harley’s, looking for something very specific. 

And for a few, terrible seconds, Harley was absolutely certain she did not have it. This time, the truth came out before she could decide whether to keep it in. “I ain’t no hero,” she said. “Not like you. I know that.” She took a slow breath. “But it’s also a definite pattern that the people in my life determine whether I’ll rise to the best or the worst of their expectations. So I think it’d be good, for the kid’s sake, you know, if we—if you and me—” 

The sweep of Canary’s long hair swung forward as she ducked in close and touched Harley’s lips in a kiss, gentle and firm and sweet with bar sugar. 

Harley reached for her by reflex, digging her fingers between her braids and dreadlocks to clasp the back of her head and hold on tighter. Canary made a soft sound in her throat and angled a little, turning it into the kind of kiss that was gonna royally fuck up their lipstick in a second. 

Then she turned her head to the side and exhaled slowly. “Sorry,” she said. “I cut you off, there.”

Harley swiped her fingers beneath her lower lip, her other hand still braced on Canary’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you did.” Better for the both of them if they kept that stuff unsaid. 

Canary shifted on the barstool so her legs bumped against Harley’s. She put her hands on the outsides of Harley’s thighs, her fingers curling just behind her knees, and just like that they were looking right at each other. 

“I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried about your taste in women right now,” Harley blurted. 

A short laugh burst from Canary’s throat. “Yeah, you and me, both,” she said. “You wanna go for a drive?”

Harley was halfway off the stool before she’d finished the question. She snagged Canary’s hand along the way. “Heck, yeah—I’ll drive.”

“Hold on, I need to grab my keys,” Canary laughed, yanking her to a stop as she hopped up on the bar and leaned way back to snag them from where she’d tucked them underneath. Harley drank up the sight of her long body stretched there for a moment before she found them and jumped back down. 

“The place looks amazing, by the way,” Harley said on their way out. “I love all the colors.” 

Canary pushed through the back door, out into the bright afternoon and the narrow alley. She tossed Harley the keys. “I thought you would.”

end.


End file.
